


One Step Ahead of a Shoeshine

by narrow_staircases



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Claustrophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narrow_staircases/pseuds/narrow_staircases
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world's ending soon, but Dean means to make the most of a long drive with Cas. He doesn't mean to pass out in a service-station bathroom. Set vaguely in season five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Step Ahead of a Shoeshine

**Author's Note:**

> Mild R for language, violent imagery, and brief reference to past dub-con.
> 
> Title is from a Simon & Garfunkel song ("Keep The Customer Satisfied").

They're heading east out of California along I-40, making their way slowly back up to Bobby's to rendezvous with Sam. The job was a bust, a couple of gruesome deaths in Yucca Valley that could have been a chupacabra, but on closer investigation Dean decided coyote was the far more probable cause. The whole thing had been Sam's discovery originally, but he'd dropped it in Dean's lap in favor of a wild-goose demon trail in Wisconsin, so it's been Dean and Cas instead, knocking on doors and making awkward inquiries.

Cutting north across Nevada and Utah would have been the quickest route to South Dakota by far, but it turned out Cas had never actually been to the Southwest. “But you've seen it, right?” Dean asks, incredulous. “From, I don't know, space or whatever?”

Cas's look is just short of an honest-to-God eye-roll, his longsuffering worn thin by days of distraught civilians and fast food dinners. “Dean, you are aware that heaven is not actually located above the earth's atmosphere?”

“Okay, fine, but seriously? Divine omni-something?”

“I _understand_ the area, Dean. I could probably describe it to you with more detail than a guidebook. But I've been told that _knowledge_ is not entirely equivalent with _experience_.” The look Cas gives him this time can only be described as meaningful, and Dean doesn't do meaningful terribly well and dives for the road map instead.

This is how they end up driving across Arizona desert, hour after hour of pastel vistas on the horizon, cliffs dotted with mountain sage, winding roads that cut through sandstone expanses so overwhelmingly, unnaturally dusty pink that Dean feels as though he's in an arcade game navigating his way through a bubblegummy alien landscape. Cas sits in the passenger seat, drinking in their surroundings in silence. It's a void that Dean would normally fill with mix tapes or random chatter, but instead he finds himself content to copy the angel's quiet observation. He breaks the quiet once, about an hour past Flagstaff, to ask Cas what he thinks of the scenery. “It feels familiar,” Cas replies, and Dean doesn't have an answer to that, although he thinks to himself that something in the arching sweep of the sandstone spires might be familiar to him as well.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Impala's running close to bone-dry when they cross into New Mexico, and Dean pulls into the first service station they can find. It's a two-pump affair with a cinderblock convenience store no wider than his car, a single window plastered with lottery tickets. Someone ironically in tune with the times has spray-painted a third six on the Phillips' sign.

Dean starts the pump and Cas unfolds himself from the car and stretches, rolling his shoulders back gingerly as if still unaccustomed to the feeling of stiffness in his joints. He unbuttons his cuffs and begins methodically turning up his sleeves (the trench coat was abandoned to the backseat at the start of the trip, primarily at Dean's insistence that even if Cas didn't mind being his own miniature oven, his vessel would still sweat and stink up the car). Dean watches him idly, half-aware that he's kind of checking him out, if you want to be technical about it, and entirely undecided about whether he cares about this fact or not. He notices that sometime in the last half hour the bridge of Cas's nose has darkened from the sun, which means his own must have already gone past freckling to burning.

Inside the shop the air is stifling, a squat fan on the counter providing only the very feeblest of breezes. Dean drums his fingers on the countertop while the attendant runs one of his cards, and then heads to the john, a tiny broom-closet of a room behind the service counter.

He's washing his hands at the low sink when everything shifts suddenly, and he's vaguely aware that he's sitting on a damp floor with his head between his knees. There's a throbbing in his temples and a muffled sort of buzzing that slowly morphs into Cas's voice, and then Cas is there, very much in his personal space. “Jeez, Cas, I can take a piss on my own,” he tries to joke, but he seems to have miscalculated the amount of air in the tiny room and runs out a few words in, jumps ship for a coughing fit instead.

“You fell over and hit your head on something, possibly hard enough to give yourself a concussion,” Cas retorts. “I assume that merits my help.”

Dean tries to look incredulous. “I fell over.”

“You passed out, Dean, for about two minutes. Don't lift your head so quickly,” he cautions, gently guiding Dean's shoulders backwards so that he's leaning against the wall rather than slumped forward over himself. “At first I thought you'd had a panic attack—”

“I don't get panic attacks, Cas.”

“You become uncomfortable in small spaces.”

“Different,” Dean grunts. There's a deep throbbing that's settled directly behind his eyes and is growing steadily stronger.

“Regardless,” Cas continues, “I think it's more likely that you're suffering from heat exhaustion.”

“Cas, c'mon, it is not that hot out.”

“It is 98 degrees outside, and with the lack of ventilation in this room the air is significantly warmer. I think the larger issue, though, is that you have not been hydrating properly.”

Dean scoffs. “I'm pretty sure _hydration_ isn't something I have a problem with, Cas.”

“Coffee and beer do not count, Dean.”

The ache behind his eyes feels like it's finally reached the center of his brain, and it suddenly seems pointless to argue for his pride when he's already on his ass in a grimy public bathroom. Dean closes his eyes and groans, “Fine, Cas, you win. I'm dehydrated, I'll drink a couple gallons of water, and we'll get our asses back on the road. Happy?”

Cas doesn't answer immediately. Instead there's a damp handkerchief pressed to Dean's forehead, blessedly cold, and the relief from the drilling pain in his temples is so sudden he can't stop himself from arching forward into Cas's hand with a breathless “Oh _fuck_.”

The angel hesitates, his voice anxious. “I'm sorry, I thought if you had a headache—”

“God, yeah, Cas, this is good. Feels good,” Dean reassures him. He settles back against the wall, winces. “Jesus, what did I hit my head on?”

“I think it was the floor. It's not bleeding.” A beat, and then Cas's thumb gently brushes Dean's cheekbone. “Your face is sunburned,” he observes.

Dean cracks an eye open. “Yeah, well so's yours,” he retorts. He means it to be flippant, to break the sudden _intensity_ of the moment which he's really not up to handling right now, but his breath hitches and it comes out gruff instead. Cas's face is _very_ close, and _Jesus, I don't know if I can do this—_

Cas leans back, and ( _thank Christ_ ) breaks the moment. “Keys.”

Dean balks. “What?”

“Give me the keys,” Cas insists. “I'm more certain about that concussion, and you are not in any condition to be driving.”

“Oh, _please_ , Cas, I have a 'maybe' concussion and I'm fucking _thirsty._ I know you haven't been at this very long, but that doesn't even _begin_ to make the Winchester list of 'things to give a shit about.'”

Cas doesn't back down under Dean's diatribe, comes on stronger if anything. “In a life-or-death situation, Dean, of course, I know you can and have dealt with far worse. But there is no emergency, so could you for once stop being so pigheadedly stubborn and let me help you?” And fuck, because the moment is back again, hangs in the air between the two of them until Cas swallows and finishes lamely, “And if I crash the Impala you'll have only yourself to blame for being such a piss-poor teacher.”

“Do not fucking joke about this, Cas.”

“It's not a joke, your instructions on three-point turns were vague at best.”

“That's because they _are_ vague, idiot, you just turn, and then turn, and—” Dean bites off a groan. He's sat up too quickly, his head is swimming, and he is desperately trying not to puke. He reaches into his jacket pocket, hands the keys to Cas, and if he doesn't let go of his hand until he's pulled himself back up to standing on shaky legs, well, that's the angel's fault for holding on too tightly.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dean sleeps, to his surprise, for the better part of a hundred miles. Despite his grousing, Cas is actually a good driver—low on experience, obviously, but he drives cautious and by-the-book to a fault. He stays awake long enough to drink the Gatorade Cas insisted they buy back at the convenience store ( _“This tastes like piss, Cas.” “Actually it's meant to replenish the minerals you lose when you sweat, so if it tastes like anything I would imagine--” “Shut the fuck up.”_ ), but he drifts off somewhere around the middle of _Zep III_ , head nodding in time against the passenger window.

When he wakes it's dark, and the Impala is parked in a wash of artificial light. The driver's side door opens and Dean's heart stops momentarily before he realizes that it's Cas, returning from . . . he shifts in his seat, gets a bearing on his surroundings. A hotel lobby? Or, more precisely, a fucking _classy_ hotel lobby. “Cas? Where the hell are we?”

Cas starts the engine, pulls slowly out from under the canopy in search of a parking space in the crowded lot. “Just outside Albuquerque. You slept much longer than I expected you to.”

“Yeah, me too—” Dean catches sight of a brightly-lit sign in the rearview and all but yelps, “A _Hilton_? Cas, you got us a room at a _Hilton_?”

The angel shrugs. “It was close and convenient, and it's not as if 'Mr. Jones' can't afford it.” He flips a credit card into Dean's lap.

Dean stares. “And you lifted my credit card.”

“You were sleeping very soundly.”

Dean mutters under his breath and stuffs the card back into his wallet (his wallet which was in his _back pocket, Jesus, Cas . . ._ ). Cas, parking spot located and painstakingly navigated into, cuts the engine and gives Dean a long stare. “Is there a problem with this hotel?”

“It's just . . . dude, we usually stay at the kind of place where you can bleed all over the carpet and no one gives a shit.”

“Are you planning to bleed all over the carpet?”

“Fine,” Dean huffs, jerks the car door open. “Forget I said anything, I guess we're staying at the fucking Hilton.” He rummages in the back seat for his duffle, his stomach flipping over in a mix of anxiety and anticipation. Part of his brain is sticking to the rational: Cas is still just worried about the whole concussion thing, figures a night's sleep in an actually _clean_ bed for a change will get him on the mend quicker. The larger, more frantic part of his brain is telling him that if a guy was hoping to, say, get laid or something tonight, this would be more the kind of place he would pick. _Get a grip, Winchester . . ._

“Here.” Cas is reaching across the car, keys in hand like a peace offering. “Dean, if you're concerned that we'll draw attention from the other patrons, I can keep our impression on people's senses vague.”

“What, like a Romulan cloaking device?”

Cas's nose wrinkles in confusion, but he cracks a shy smile anyway. “I've done it before,” he answers, shouldering the other duffle, “and I believe you made a similar reference then as well.”

Dean studies his friend's face for a long minute, lets himself acknowledge the quiet earnestness in the angel's eyes. The guy's trying so damn hard, would it kill him at least make an effort in return? “Okay then,” he sighs. “Romulan us into this place.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Everything, _everything_ in the hotel gives off this feeling of never before having been touched by human hands. It's rich, not in an opulent, classic-movie-era-mansion sort of way, but in its sparseness: clean lines, minimalist color schemes, weirdly-shaped armchairs which are probably influenced by some design movement Sam would know the name of. They're also disappointingly uncomfortable, which doesn't make sense to Dean. The beds, on the other hand, he can tell just by looking are going to be _amazing_.

Cas is examining the tiny bottles of shampoo and lotion carefully arranged by the sink, squinting at the ingredient lists as if there's going to be a test tomorrow. Dean's much more interested in the _other_ tiny bottles, the ones lined up in the fridge, although after a long look he closes the door in resignation. He'd just add the charge to the credit card, not a problem, but after Cas's lecture on 'proper hydration' earlier in the day, he's not going to push the issue now, not when he's trying to play nice and keep this evening as awkward-confrontation-free as possible.

He glances up to see Cas standing in the bathroom doorway with a sleek metallic canister in his hands and a puzzled look on his face. Dean laughs. “Ice bucket,” he supplies, and then realizes that he actually is pretty thirsty. “You want to go explore, bring us back some ice? From the machine,” he adds quickly, struck suddenly by the thought of Cas winging it off to Alaska or somewhere and re-materializing with a bucket full of glacial shards. Which, admittedly, would be pretty badass. But all the same. “I think we passed it on the first floor, by the elevator?”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “Does it count as exploring if you've already told me where to find it?” he asks as he opens the door.

“Okay, probably not, but go have fun anyway. You're the one who wanted to stay at the Hilton, knock yourself out.” That last bit he pretty much shouts after him, as Cas lets the door fall closed behind him. It latches with a sharp click that echoes slightly in the emptiness of the room.

Dean paces a bit, studies the stylized landscape prints on the walls and the view of the brightly-light parking lot from their fourth-story window, before falling backwards onto the bed nearest the door. It's exactly as soft as he imagined it would be, and for the sake of his lower back alone, which is pinched and sore from hours of driving, he could forgive Cas this unexpected experimentation with upscale hotels. But because his brain can't just leave a good thing well enough alone, it's still not enough to distract him. From the fact that this is not just another night on the road with his brother. From the fact that he is sharing a hotel room—a very _classy_ hotel room—with his friend who happens to be an angel of the Lord, but who is also seeming more and more human, more familiar and _right_ with every day. Who is also really fucking _hot_ in a rumpled white shirt with the cuffs turned up and his tie undone.

He groans softly and rolls to his side, pressing his face into the comforter. He's got that same sinking feeling in his gut as from before: panicked, _I don't know if I can do this_. And it's not about the sex, either, because it's not like he's _inexperienced._ Handful of random blowjobs to make rent when he was in his teens aside, there was also one time at a bar outside Omaha after a particularly memorable hunt—he'd let his mind wander, one step the wrong way, add a seriously pissed-off spirit and it was the closest he'd ever come to death without getting a scratch. Dad was off-the-charts furious, Sam was bitching at Dad, and Dean, riding a wave of _oh sweet holy fuck I'm still alive_ , hit up the closest dive bar to the hotel. Resulting in, a couple hours later, a stranger fucking him up against a car in the lot out back. Hardly his first or last drunken quickie (although, yeah, always with women otherwise), but it's one that he has never, will never, despite his longstanding kiss-and-tell reputation, discuss with _anyone_. One, because while the guy was perfectly chill and Dean was totally into it (he remembers that much), there's still the fact that the only reason it happened was because he was too smashed to even think about saying no. Which he's more okay with than he probably should be, but certain little brothers would flip their shit. And two, because despite the alcohol-haziness of his memory, it was the most intense orgasm he's ever had. So yeah, sue him, but the sex is not what he's worried about.

And yet at the same time, it _is_ , because he's never been in a position like this before, of turning a friendship into something else. He usually starts with sex—usually never gets any further than sex, honestly, and even the couple times he's been with a girl for longer than one night, they were still just flings and he happened to linger. This, with Cas, if one of them springs for it? This would be something different. Something not temporary. _Relationship_ , forget the “long-term” part, has never been in Dean's vocabulary. And he's scared shitless. He doesn't want to screw this up, God, he really, _really_ does not want to screw this up . . .

The latch clicks again as the door swings open, and Dean shoots up off the bed as Cas enters, ice bucket balanced in his left hand. “Here, put it by the fridge,” Dean tells him, trying to look a little less like a startled animal as he gets up to grab a couple of glasses sitting on the countertop in the mini-kitchenette. “You want a glass?”

Cas does, and so Dean fills two tumblers with ice and tap water, hands one to Cas, and then they're both standing there just awkwardly drinking _ice water_ for Christ sake, and Cas is trying to maintain eye contact while he's drinking and Dean is pretty sure he's never felt so painfully aware of his entire existence as he is right now. “Um.” He clears his throat. “You gonna want to turn in pretty soon? You're probably tired from all that driving.” _Angel, idiot_ , he reminds himself, and why is that getting so much harder to remember these days?

His self-reprimand must have played out across his face, because Cas almost smiles. “I actually am,” he says. “Not sleep deprived necessarily, but . . . drained, I think. I would like to shower.”

“Yeah, sure.” Relieved at the break in tension, Dean heads towards the television and swipes a remote off the cabinet. “First shower's yours then, I already got my beauty sleep so I can wait a bit.”

He flips through channels aimlessly as Cas showers, the sound turned down low, listening to the constant, steady stream of water hitting tile. Cas reemerges a while later, wearing one of Dean's old tees and a pair of Sam's sweats which pool around his ankles and force him to adopt a kind of shuffling walk. His hair is damp and towel-dried in about twenty different directions, his face flushed from a combination of steam and the sunburn from earlier in the day. Dean watches as he tilts his head to one side and rubs at his ear with the towel, trying to dislodge water, and for the first time he feels something else along with the continuing panic, something like happiness. Yeah, it's weird and awkward as shit and definitely not what he ever pictured, he thinks later when he's in the shower, letting the hot water pound away at the deep aches in his muscles. But he could more than get used to it—he could probably fucking _love_ it.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_He's been here before._

 

_The floorboards in Bobby's back room are worn and shrunken with age, their softened edges gaping apart and leaving cracks underfoot that lead down to the cellar where in a few years Bobby will build a room of salt and iron that he'll joke about as if it's an old man's endearingly weird hobby but the truth is he was out of his mind with grief but not so far gone that he couldn't read the signs in the weather patterns and crop circles and livestock deaths and maybe if Dean paces long enough he'll wear a deep groove through the floor right above where the room isn't and they'll all fall down through the cracks and just keep falling and falling_

 

_“Dean?” Sam's voice is uncertain, gentle, like maybe how you might talk to someone who just found out they only have a few months to live. Dean ignores him. His palms are sweating, and he carefully wipes them on the legs of his jeans._

 

_“Where the fuck is my dad?” He's already asked her once, and she just grinned at him sideways from underneath those ridiculously long bangs of hers (I mean Jesus would it kill the kid to get a haircut one of these days) and when he asks again his voice breaks._

 

_—well snaps or bends or tears or splits really we're talking cartilage and muscles here Dean precision precision precision—_

 

_She's still not answering. He grabs the arms of her chair, leans in close. Just inches, breathing in and out, in and out. Noses almost touching._

 

_Nothing matters except dad. Nothing matters except dad._

 

_He thinks he's mustering up the courage but then everything just blooms red suddenly, and he swings his arm back and when the edge of his palm connects with her face it feels_ _ right. Bones shatter under his fingers. _

 

_He's never done this before._

 

_(he does this every fucking moment of every fucking day he's done this his whole life)_

 

_Meg's blood is running down the back of his hand, and he doesn't know whether to wipe it off or just ignore it, because he's really fucking new at this and if there's some kind of protocol no one's shown him it yet._

 

_—pay attention Dean do as I do (here let's move some things around there's room for your liver up here where the view's a bit better a tidy workspace, Dean, that's the difference between amateurs and a master)—_

 

_“Gotta say, that's a real turn-on, Dean,” she leers, licking the blood off her (his) lips. “You, hitting a girl?” And he feels sick to his stomach. And as if he's never been prouder of anything in his life._

 

_(“You remember?” Alistair's murmuring into his ear, what's left of it, he's curled up around Dean's head, draped over his body and propping himself up by one elbow as he slowly shaves away at the skin slice by slice. “Remember what you said to her when she told you daddy was dead?”_

 

_Dean still cries down here, he started crying day one and it's never really stopped or made him feel less wreaked, and huh, guess that's probably why they call it eternal damnation._

 

_“Remember?” the demon whispers again. “I know Meg remembers, I know she refreshed your memory the last time she filled in for me.” There's a bloody thumb pressed against Dean's mouth, running back and forth across his gums and then settling on a lower incisor, pushing at the tooth until it gives and snaps. “Tell me, Dean. Tell me what you told Meg. What did you say you were going to do?”_

 

_He gasps, breathes in teeth and blood and chokes out, “'I swear to God—I will march straight into hell and kill—every last one of—'”)_

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Dean.”

His eyes snap open, and reality falls back into place. Earth. Hotel. Cas, who's crouched on the floor beside the bed, one hand hovering as if afraid to startle Dean with his touch. His arm aches clear up to his shoulder, but it's only from gripping the edge of the mattress, not from dislocation or being systematically broken in nine places. The rasp in his throat from screaming himself hoarse, though, well. That's the same across the board.

He starts to shake, tiny, violent tremors that work their way through his whole body in waves. This is the part he hates, the delayed-reaction panic attacks that hit him when he wakes up from one of those dreams, when his brain has registered the absence of danger and filed all that truly disturbing shit back away until the next time his subconscious drags it out, but his body hasn't gotten the memo yet and floods his system with fight-or-flight after-effects.

Sam's learned to basically ignore this bit, that the tears that pool in Dean's eyes are just a stupid reflex thing. Cas isn't taking it quite as calmly, though. “Dean? Are you alright?”

“M'fine,” he mutters, and he is. His teeth aren't even chattering this time.

“Should I bring you anything?”

“Said m' _fine_ , C-cas,” but _fuck_ , there goes his voice. Cas moves away from the bed, and in his absence Dean tries to get control of his heart rate. His breathing's irregular though, and telling himself to take deep, steady breaths doesn't do much good when his throat is constricting, choking off one breath and turning the next into a frantic gasp.

“Here.” Cas is back with a glass of water, which he places on the nightstand, then crawls over Dean's legs to sit on the other side of him. “Sit up, Dean—that's it, that's it,” he murmurs, holding Dean by the forearm and pulling him upright. “Lean forward,” he instructs, “and try to breathe slowly and deeply.”

“'M— _tryin_ ',” Dean grinds out. He's starting to feel dizzy from the lack of oxygen, and that in turn is making him panic even more. “ _F-ffuck—_ ”

“Dean.” Cas is rubbing slow, gentle circles between his shoulder blades, his voice low and calm. “You're safe. Just breathe, Dean.”

And gradually, his heartbeat slows and his breathing starts to sound like breathing again. Dean slumps, burying his face in his arms as exhaustion overwhelms his suddenly obedient muscles. Cas reaches over him for the water glass and hands it to him. “Drink,” he orders, and Dean does. The angel's hand is still on his back, warm, and Dean doesn't want to make eye contact and startle him into snatching it back. He's also pretty sure that he's about nine seconds away from feeling mortified and he doesn't really want to jumpstart that whole thing if he can help it.

“You still dream about hell?” It's somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Um . . . kinda.” Dean drags a hand across his face, pinches the bridge of his nose. He's silent for a long while, and Cas just sits, patiently. “We, um . . .” he falters, then starts again, hesitantly, his voice a quiet rasp. “You know how we met Meg back when my dad was still hunting that yellow-eyed demon? We, uh, we trapped her at Bobby's once, when Dad was missing, and we figured she had something to do with it.” He pauses. “I . . . I kinda roughed her up a little.” _I broke her nose and I liked it, and I knew the body wasn't hers, was someone innocent, but I didn't care, and I made Sammy do my dirty work for me and finish the exorcism and hearing her scream felt so fucking good._ “Anyway, it, um, kind of gets mixed up with . . . y'know. What happened in hell, all the shit I did.” He finishes in a rush, anxious but mostly just sort of amazed that he actually said any of that. He's never told anyone this before, never talked to Sam about any of his nightmares regardless of how much the kid pestered him. Telling Cas, though, felt . . . well, normal. Safe. Maybe because Cas has already seen him at his worst, his god-almighty rock-bottom worst, that he knows he can never be forgiven for.

Maybe because he wants Cas to know _everything_ , because if there's anyone in this world he wants to trust anymore, it's Cas.

“Dean, I'm sorry.” The angel's arm is still around him, and Dean leans into his touch briefly. “I understand regret, and guilt, and I don't know of any way to heal them.” His voice dips down to a whisper. “I haven't found a way to forgive myself, either.”

Dean laughs, not because any of this shit is particularly funny, but because it's either that or admit that he's on the verge of crying. “Fuck, Cas, we're a pathetic pair.”

“You're not pathetic,” Cas answers, his voice serious. “And you're not worthless, and you are not unforgivable, Dean.”

Dean meets his eyes, and it's the most earnest gaze he's ever tried to hold, and everything suddenly falls into place with a tiny click that sounds like _you idiot, how did it take you this long?_

“Cas—” he starts, but the angel overlaps him, gives his shoulder a gentle shove. “You should go back to sleep, Dean. You're exhausted.”

And he is, he's exhausted and jittery and his head is fuzzy enough that any sudden move and he knows he'll black out. But still, he can't help but catch Cas's elbow as he falls back against the pillow, tugging the angel down beside him, and the look of happy surprise on Cas's face is the last thing he knows before he passes out.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cas is right, he does have have a _thing_ about small spaces, feeling trapped. Not panic attacks necessarily (not _always_ ), but he gets nervous, his breathing gets tight, and yeah, one time he puked, but that might have been more about the bad diner breakfast than the way the Impala's sides felt like they were closing in (Sam bought that one, at least). Honestly though, after waking up in your own grave? It would probably be weirder to _not_ be freaked out by that kind of thing. Most normal problem he's got.

All that to say: when he wakes up with Cas snuggled close behind him, his arm draped heavily over Dean's waist, and he doesn't panic?

It's one of the best things he's felt in a long while.

 


End file.
